PRINTING PRESS

ca. 1860

X1898.01.01

The Montana Post - which was published weekly between August 27, 1864, and June 11, 1869 - was the first newspaper in Montana Territory issued as a regular edition. It measured twenty-one by thirty-one inches (six columns wide) and was printed on this Lowe Press No. 2, initially in Virginia City and, after March 1868, in Helena. As new communities sprang up across the state, editors founded many other local newspapers, which were an essential part of a thriving community. In addition, during the early part of the twentieth century dozens of foreign-language and ethnically affiliated papers - including German, Swedish, Serbian, Croatian, Irish American and African American - flourished. Woolgrowers, stock growers, mining interests, farmers, socialists, and labor unions all published special interest newspapers as well. Today, the Montana Historical Society holds ninety-five percent of all the newspapers ever published in the Treasure State, providing researchers with a remarkable record of daily life, culture, and politics from 1864 to the present.